


Writing the Song

by AllThoseOtherWorlds



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (And I hate writing dialogue), Because you know what happens as far as action goes, But from her perspective, Episode: s05e12 The Pandorica Opens, Episode: s06e01 The Impossible Astronaut, Episode: s06e02 Day of the Moon, Episode: s06e08 Let's Kill Hitler, F/M, Mostly introspection, Rewriting the same story you already know, River's POV, So you see the timeline in a different order
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThoseOtherWorlds/pseuds/AllThoseOtherWorlds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is made up of choices which can be made, and choices which cannot be made. Melody has had many choices made for her in her life, but it is the choices she herself has made which allow her to become River Song.</p><p>River's story, but from her own point of view. High on introspection because you've already seen the episodes and know what happens as far as action and dialogue goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - A Fixed Point in Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tangelene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangelene/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who  
> Constructive criticism and feedback is always appreciated.

                There are stories out there of a mysterious madman with a blue box who always shows up when you least expect him, but most need him. He can show up at any point in time or space, and always appears to know nothing, but acts as though he knows everything.

                I can tell you that the stories are true.

                If you ever meet this man, he will tell you that some points in time are fixed, and some are not. He will tell you that you can change some things in life – that there are some elements which truly are under your control. Other points are fixed, of course, and cannot be tampered with, but it is always the changeable moments which truly matter. These are the moments where you look at your life and your purpose, and you consider your destiny and everything you have ever been trained to do – and you throw them all away. These are the moments which truly define the course of my existence, and the pattern of my life would be drastically different had I not made my own choices when given the opportunity to do so.

                It is, however, the fixed moments which began my life, and the fixed element woven throughout which has guided all of the other, more malleable choices I have made. No matter which life I led and which choices I made, there is one man who would always have found his way back into my path. It is with him that my story truly begins, and it is with him that it will inevitably end. Of all the points in my life that could have been changed, I know in my heart he is not one of them.

                My story begins with the anger of a good man and the fury of a considerably less-than-good woman.

                I knew neither of these people as a child. In fact, it would be difficult to say that I truly knew anything of my childhood. My memories of that time are vague and uncertain, mere snippets of time stolen from Silence. I remember a suit, confinement and screaming. And then I stopped screaming, because what was the point if no one could hear me? I remember calling for help once, and almost finding it. I remember escape, and running, and crying. I remember getting shot, and I remember the pain, and I remember the glowing light and the most curious sensation of constancy and change. But still there were no people. My entire remembered life up until that point had been alone.

                Well, almost alone.

                I know now that I was never truly alone as a child – there was always someone there. It was a long time before I knew for sure what was happening to me, butI I was quick to realize that my life was not entirely my own. I am left to assume that it was Madame Kovarian, and the Silence with whom she wiped my memory. I do not know. What I do know is what they taught me – what she taught me – about my life and my identity and my purpose. I was born of war and anger, and I was born to kill.

                I was aware on some level of my identity. I knew I could regenerate. I knew the names of my parents and the unusual nature of my birth. Most of all, I knew of the Doctor: I knew that he was powerful, and I knew that he was in some way like me, and I knew that he was to die, and that I was to kill him. I knew he had to die. If it ever occurred to me to ask why he must die, and why it had to be me who caused his death, I was not allowed to remember my insolence.

                All of this was in my mind by the time I attempted my ill-fated escape as a child. I no longer remember if there was any real reason for me to leave, but I like to think it was reflex. After all, how can a person’s nature be moulded by something such as a TARDIS without at least the basic instinct to run, to find freedom and to explore?

                I was caught, of course – I was always caught. But in the end I did find my freedom.

                I can’t say I truly remember the day when I found myself living with the Ponds. My memory skips around that area, carefully avoiding whatever meetings I may have had with Madame Kovarian and the Silence. One moment I was regenerating in an alleyway, trying to escape from the suit in which I had spent my childhood, and the next I was in a playground in England. I did not remember how I ended up there, but I did know what I was to do. I had to find the Ponds, and gain their trust, and grow up with them. And then I had to kill the Doctor. It was the strangest feeling – I knew who he was, and that he had to die, but I had no memory of learning about him. It was simply a fact of life, like the need to breathe. Logically, I knew that the mission was probably forced onto me by whoever was controlling my life (I did not yet know Madame Kovarian) but I didn't care - it felt natural and I didn't want to question it. However it happened, I had a mission, and I would carry it out.

                I suppose that moment was both the end of my actual childhood and the beginning of the only true childhood I would ever know.


	2. Growing Up wth the Ponds

                When Madame Kovarian let me live with the Ponds and grow up with them, I don’t think it ever occurred to her that they could have any real influence on me. She had spent so much of her time preprogramming me with information on how to kill, motivation to get the killing done, and desensitization to anything even remotely resembling empathy that I guess I was about as reliable as she figured I could ever be. What I didn’t have, however – what I could never have learned from subconscious brainwashing – was the ability to deal with people. And who better to teach me than my parents?

                I knew who they were from the moment I saw them. Any potential resemblance had been completely wiped out by my regeneration, of course: with the change in ethnicity, no one would ever have guessed that we were at all related. But I knew. It didn’t mean much to me at first; that’s what I told myself, anyway. Why should I care that they gave birth to me? It wasn’t as though they’d ever really done anything else. They were simply targets to be studied, tools to be used to get valuable information about the real object of interest: the Doctor.

                They were almost as obsessed with the Doctor as I was. From the moment I befriended little Amelia and her slightly awkward but ever present friend Rory, I heard and saw him everywhere. I still remember the first time she told me about him over lunch one day at school. I had asked about the drawings she was doodling on her lunch bag (knowing full well what they were, but eager to hear the story in her own words, and in words I would be allowed to remember having heard) and she had willingly spilled out the whole tale.

                It wasn’t at all what I had expected.

                I don’t know what it was I had prepared myself to hear. With everything I had been told and conditioned to believe, the Doctor had always appeared in my mind as a warrior. He was a foe to be bested, and any pretense of kindness was to be regarded as a ploy to expose my weaknesses. After all, what other sort of man could warrant the creation of a specially designed psychopath like myself?

                For Amelia, however, the Doctor was something else entirely. She told me of a madman, yes – slightly insane and unpredictable and utterly alien – but she spoke with the enthusiasm and wonder befitting someone who truly believed that they had seen something incredible. The Doctor in her stories was always Good. He was the answer to her childish and misdirected prayers to Santa; he was the solution to her malfunctioning wall; he was the spice which her lonely and parentless existence had so desperately required.

                At first, I dismissed her feelings as a byproduct of her youth and his acting, but as we grew up together I was forced to at least pretend to share her love for him. I don’t know when the pretense became a reality, but somewhere along the line, I believe it did.

                It started out as a game – mention the Doctor, win over Amy (as she soon began to call herself). I had never liked authority much anyway, and I relished any chance to make a scene. Any chance to stretch my newfound illusion of freedom (I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that the forces controlling my life were leaving me alone, but more of my memories were my own than ever before, and it was a new feeling for me) was eagerly taken. And so I began to use the Doctor as Amy did – as a symbol. When something went wrong, he was the one who should have stopped it. He was the one who would, at some point, show up and save the day. The stories were Amy’s, really, but I was the only one bold enough – or foolish enough – to really get in trouble for them. I didn’t have any adults around who cared, and Amy and Rory always found the antics amusing. In retrospect, I suppose they would probably have a different opinion had they known of our true relation.

                But they didn’t know, and rather than chastising me they laughed, and smiled, and as I got older sometimes they sighed, but we were all friends. Friendship was a concept I’d had no sense of before I met them. Who would there have been to make friends with? My friendship with the Ponds (Rory was always a Pond, whether or not he’d admit it) was slow to form, and I didn’t even realize what it was until it had long since fallen into place. At first, I told myself that they were just tools to be used – a way to get to the Doctor. I told myself that they didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t until I’d known them for four years that I realized just how wrong I was.

                Strangely enough, it was a normal day. No one else remembers it, I’m sure. Amy was eleven years old, and she, Rory, and I had gone to her place after school let out that Friday to work on a project for class. The details of the project have, like so much else in my life, faded into the obscurity of forgotten memories, but somehow we all ended up sprawled on her floor over some old photo albums. Amy’s aunt tended to get a bit carried away with a camera, and there were pictures of us from the very beginning. We were there together at Amy’s seventh birthday party, and again at her place playing dress up (with Rory starring as the Doctor), and again at the park months later – it was all there. And in that moment it occurred to me for the first time that, despite all of my training with the Silence (remembered and unremembered), _this_ is what really mattered to me. I still knew my destiny, of course: kill the Doctor. But growing up here and living a normal life with the Ponds was showing me that, despite whatever psychopathic tendencies I’d had forced into me, I could still care. I did still care. Maybe not enough to want to change where my life was going, but certainly enough to realize that maybe what I had wasn’t all there was.

                It was a start.


	3. Becoming River Song

                Despite everything I had learned about him, and everything I had been told I needed to do because of him, I didn’t really meet the Doctor until I was almost an adult. By then, I was fairly certain that both Amy and Rory had already met him, or at least knew him somehow. I couldn’t get any real information without revealing the true extent of my knowledge, however, and so I kept quiet.

                I do not believe meeting them that day was a fluke, although I was not consciously aware that they would be in that cornfield. What I did know was that _I_ needed to be in that cornfield at that time, as I needed to be in so many other strange places at strange times. Such callings were by no means an unusual occurrence in my life, and I had quickly learned to develop a reputation which would allow me to cover up the strange periods of missing time. Most people assumed that an unremembered weekend or two meant that I had been drinking or partying or something, and it was far easier to let them make their assumptions than to tell them the truth. I always knew I’d been manipulated, of course – I didn’t need to remember the experiences to notice the increase in the skills and motivation required for my ultimate task. After each session, I always had a slight awareness of when and where the next one was to be, and it was this type of awareness which led me to the cornfield that day. I still do not know how the Silence discovered that the Doctor would be there.

                After everything I had learned about the Doctor, I was very surprised when he turned out to be completely different from my expectations. I thought he would be terrifying, and I suppose in a way he was, but he was also funny, and friendly, and far kinder than I had ever been led to believe he would be. After our brief conversations in the cornfield and inside the TARDIS, I started to like the man despite myself.

                I was still planning to kill him.

                From the moment I saw the Doctor, I knew what I had to do. The gun was the obvious way to get him, and it was one I knew would probably never work – even if I did shoot him, it was too much to risk that he would somehow regenerate and escape. It was far easier to slip on some poisoned lipstick and wait for the right moment to strike. The flirting, therefore, was completely planned. That didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t genuine. The Doctor had, after all, been the entire purpose of my life from the moment I was old enough to learn. He was also, I had quickly learned, kind and funny and rather more impressive than I was ever going to let him believe. It is a funny thing how fine the line is between an obsessive, ingrained hatred and the obsession which is love.

                I hadn’t expected to be shot accidentally by a Nazi, so the regeneration took me by surprise, but it didn’t stop me. I’d always known I wouldn’t be able to keep the charade with my parents up after this, and although I lamented the loss of our friendship, I couldn’t help but find amusement in their flabbergasted expressions when they figured out who I really was. I wasn’t surprised when the regeneration and the name Melody cued them in that I was their daughter. What did surprise me, however, was that they seemed to be reminded of some other woman – a “River Song” – of whom I knew absolutely nothing. The Doctor seemed to know her, and I was supposed to know all about the Doctor and his life. Why didn’t I know who River Song was?

                The revelation was confusing, but as it was also ultimately irrelevant I brushed it aside and continued with the plan. Everything went as I had planned, and my training put itself to good use as I poisoned the Doctor and ran off into the city. The Doctor was as good as dead, I had effectively killed him, and everything had gone as it was always meant to go. I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed.

                Now that I had ensured the Doctor’s death, I wasn’t entirely certain what to do next. I had to stick around the city until the poison actually killed him, of course – this was the Doctor, after all – but beyond that I had no further instructions. Everything in my life had been leading me to this moment, but now that it was here I had nothing left. Would my controllers have further plans for me? I was a tool to them, and I knew it. They had been manipulating my life for this one purpose, and I had always expected that they would discard me when I was no longer of use to them. I was the only one I could really trust to look after me. But what did I want to do?

                I brushed aside my moment of introspection – stolen as I sped through the city in search of something fun to interrupt – and got on with the business of finding something to wear. My thoughts were interrupted yet again when Amy entered the building and started to question me (entirely too calmly) about the Doctor. I answered with characteristic flippancy, pushing away the twinge I felt at the knowledge that our friendship was essentially over. They had never been very important to the ultimate goal, but I did care about her and Rory, and I knew how unlikely they were to understand that I had only done what I had to do.

                My train of thought was completely derailed when it turned out that “Amy” was actually a shapeshifting robot hell-bent on torturing me for killing the Doctor.

                I think part of me had always been expecting something like this – a life after completing my mission had never really seemed worthy of consideration – so although I certainly didn’t welcome the prospect of torture, I was less than shocked by it. What really surprised me, however, was the Doctor’s attempt to protect me. I had pretty much succeeded in killing him. Why on Earth would he want to protect me? I was a bit distracted by the beam of light holding me in place, but what I could hear of the conversation between the Doctor and not-Amy made very little sense.

                If the Doctor was such a dangerous person who had to die, why was trying to protect me? Why did he seem nice and funny and certainly not evil? Not for the first time, I wished I had some idea of what was going on and why my life was the way it was. I had always known that the Doctor had to die, but no one had ever bothered to tell me why.

                When the beam of light finally let me go, I froze for a moment as I tried to decide what to do. Nearly all of my reflexes urged me to run – save myself, leave the Doctor to die, and try my best to forget the Ponds – but something about the Doctor’s pleading eyes made me stay and listen. He asked me to help my parents, of course, to save them. I was expecting something like that from him. But then, as he strained towards the TARDIS in some last-ditch effort to do _something,_ I heard it again. “River”.

                Who the Hell was River? I had never heard mention of her before today, but the Doctor had spoken of her as though she was important. She must be someone he cared about, but I had no idea who she was, and I didn’t know how anyone could make that much of an impression on a man like the Doctor.

                The intensity with which the Doctor, weakened though he was, struggled to help the Ponds pulled at me. In a way, I suppose it reminded me of the importance of my own mission to kill him, but unlike me he had a reason for his purpose. He loved them and wanted them safe, whereas I was acting out of a drive I was almost certain wasn’t truly my own. And now that my mission was almost complete, what did I really have to lose? I sighed, took a deep breath, and stepped inside the TARDIS, muttering to myself under my breath. “Here goes nothing”.

                When I was in the TARDIS on the way here, I was busy focusing my attention on the Doctor. Now, however, I was alone with the ship, and much to my surprise, she _noticed_ me. The connection was hard to describe, and it was utterly unlike anything I had previously experienced, but I knew without a doubt that the TARDIS herself was somehow communicating with me. Time seemed to warp and bend, losing its meaning as years of information rushed into my mind. I knew the ship; I knew how she flew and what she needed and how to guide her path. There was a sense of something more than that, too – something deeper and harder to explain. There was a sense of dimension and depth of experience that I knew had to be the consciousness of the ship herself, and her sense of the universe. I thought back to what the Doctor had said as he pointed towards the old ship. “You’re the child of the TARDIS. She’ll teach you how to fly”. I didn’t really know what he meant, but whatever connection this was, I was extremely grateful for it. In that moment I knew I was changed forever in a way I would never really be able to fully describe.

                When we were back with the Doctor, I stood back and let the Ponds talk to him. They were his friends, after all. As I watched them from afar, I wondered again why he had to die. What would he do that was so bad? I was starting to feel a bit bad for having had to kill him when he asked to speak with me. I approached him with a certain amount of trepidation. He didn’t seem like the type to assign blame or become angry in his last moments, but why else would he want to talk to me?

                “Find her,” he said, staring me in the eyes. “Find River Song and tell her something for me.”

                “Tell her what?” What I wanted to ask was ‘Why me?’ or ‘Who is she?’ or ‘How do I find her?’ but I didn’t ask. There probably wasn’t time. I leaned in towards the Doctor, listening for his message.

                His words whispered into my ear. “Tell her I forgive her and I love her”

                I smiled. Whoever this River Song was, she must be important to him to warrant this much thought so close to death. And anyone that close to him had to know this type of thing already, right? “Well, I’m sure she knows”. But I knew I would relay the message. Whoever this woman was, I wanted to find her and get to know her. Wasn’t it time I had a new mission?

                The Doctor’s eyes closed, and I knew it was only a matter of minutes until he was completely gone. I went to stand near Amy and Rory, who somehow didn’t seem to mind my company even after what I’d done. For a moment I just looked at him, lying there on the steps. I thought briefly of Madame Kovarian – or what little of her I could remember. _I hope this was really as important as you made it seem._ My sense of loyalty to her – uncertain at the best of times, despite my forced obsession with the mission – was fading fast. I could feel a plan forming in the back of my mind. It was insane, and dangerous, and absolutely a bad idea. For some reason I couldn’t quite dismiss it.

                I turned to Amy. Bad time or no, it was time for some answers. “Who’s River Song?”

                I waited as Amy and Rory exchanged a meaningful glance and asked the Teselecta to display River Song. And then I watched as Amy’s double dissolved into coloured tiles and re-formed into an exact replica of my own (new) face.

                I nearly cried. Everything he had said about River, everything she had meant to him – how could that possibly be me? I had tried to kill him. There were moments left before I _succeeded_. I remembered the message the Doctor had left for River – for me. _I forgive her._ I had no idea why I deserved his forgiveness, or how I had ever managed to become so important to him, but I knew I wanted to find out. My “mission” seemed hollow: I had been forced to kill a man with absolutely no explanation. Now, the plan in the back of my mind flared to the surface, and I called forth the energy needed to save the Doctor. I needed to save him. I needed it as much as I needed to kill him – more, because killing him was a goal I’d had forced on me since birth, but saving him was a choice I was being allowed to make. I turned to the Ponds. “Just tell me – the Doctor, is he worth it?”

                I knew the answer before I even asked the question, but I asked anyway. Their affirmations came as no surprise. The Doctor opened his eyes as I approached him, and I could tell immediately that he knew what my plan was and didn’t approve of it. I didn’t care, and I knew he wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it at the moment. I smiled, channeling my remaining regenerations into him through a kiss. “Hello, Sweetie”.

I’m sure the energy was very impressive looking, but honestly the kiss is all I remember before fainting.


	4. "Killing" the Doctor

                When I woke up in that hospital after the Doctor and the Ponds had left, I was alone for the first time in my life. No one had given me any instructions or missions. I was free. As soon as I was given the okay to leave, I took the blue diary (a gift from the Doctor I didn’t entirely understand, but with which I was pleased) and went to find a future.

                I knew immediately that I wanted to find the Doctor and keep in touch with him. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that our story wasn’t done yet, and I didn’t want to just wait around and hope that he’d find me. Besides, my decision to be done with the Silence was all well and good, but I was starting to feel the loss now that I didn’t have a set mission to work towards. It was difficult to go from a structured and goal-oriented life (even a confusing and half-remembered one) to a life of freedom and choice. Searching for the Doctor would give me something to focus on again.

                With my new mission in mind, I immediately set about finding a way to locate – or at least track – the Doctor. It was as I contemplated his possible whereabouts that the field of Archeology occurred to me. Searching all of Time and Space to find one man was a daunting task at the best of times, and as long as I was going to be doing it I may as well turn it into a living. It wasn’t like I had anything better in mind.

                Getting into a university for archeology was easier than I thought. I had never been too concerned with grades back on Earth with the Ponds, but I had known enough to pay attention to the lessons, and my manipulators had evidently decided that anyone setting out to kill the Doctor had to be pretty intelligent. I had to falsify some birth records, of course, but before I knew it I was studying archeology and keeping an eye open for anything remotely related to the Doctor.

                Things started to settle down a little, for a while. There were still plenty of adventures, of course, but they were _normal_ adventures, if such a thing were possible. There was nothing which involved the Silence, or the Doctor, but it was enough to keep me occupied and educated. And then I met him for the second time, and everything started to change.

                I have a vague recollection of the day that they came for me. I had just received my Doctorate, and was reviewing some file on the Doctor when a strangely familiar woman approached me. I had never been allowed to retain a memory of Madame Kovarian before, but although I didn’t recognize her she made me distinctly nervous. I only have a hazy memory of our conversation, and then a period of unconsciousness before coming to in the familiar suit of my childhood – or a similar version – and starting to panic.

                Everything becomes confusing and jumbled after that. I remember looking at the Doctor and crying, and although I can see his lips moving I do not remember what he is saying to me. I know now, of course, that I was being forced by the suit to kill the Doctor, but I do not actually remember doing it. I do remember, in vague snippets, the alternate reality my refusal threw us into. I remember panic, and trying to avoid touching the Doctor so I didn’t have to kill him. I remember thinking that I had only just met him, but I had also known him my whole life and there was so much that still had to happen so I _couldn’t_ kill him now. I remember Madame Kovarian. I remember Amy and Rory, and realizing that only the Doctor and I really knew what was going on.

                I remember standing at the top of a pyramid and looking at the Doctor, watching him try to convince me to take his life. I immediately refused, because I just couldn’t force myself to believe that it was really a fixed point – that it absolutely _had_ to happen – even though the proof was all around me. I remember a wedding, haphazard, performed with a bow-tie on top of a pyramid in a timeline which didn’t exist. I don’t think anything could have more perfectly summed up our relationship. Most clearly, I remember looking into his eyes, expecting to hear a name but instead hearing a whispered “look into my eye”. I remember looking into his eye and seeing him there, waving at me, and realizing that he’d had a plan all along, that I _didn’t_ kill him, and I remember how happy and how relieved I was to realize that I didn’t have to do it and that I had, once again, managed to escape what I had always believed to be my destiny.

                I do not remember actually “killing” him.

                The next clear thing in my memory is the trial. People were shouting at me, and others were quietly glowering at me, and a few were pleased, and a judge was yelling at all of them for order. I pled guilty. What was the point in fighting? It was better for everyone if the Doctor was “dead”, and I couldn’t plead innocent and maintain the lie. It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to break out of jail, anyway. So I smiled at them and pled guilty and smirked flippant remarks at the staff. The prison was fairly standard, and I had a long wait ahead of me, I supposed, but I wasn’t worried. The Doctor wasn’t dead, and I hadn’t killed him, so as far as I was concerned, everything had gone according to plan.


	5. Stormcage

                Theoretically, Stormcage was a top-security prison and near-inescapable. In reality, I had almost no trouble breaking out from time to time. Everything I’d been taught growing up, and everything I’d learned myself trying to escape, had prepared me perfectly for a situation like this. If I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t have to be. The life sentence, therefore, wasn’t nearly as threatening as it could have been. I didn’t break free, though – it didn’t seem worth it. Why bother? It was a convenient base from which I could leave on adventures, and staying was easier than falsifying more papers and a new identity after breaking out. And, of course, the Doctor started to show up more frequently.

                The first time the TARIDS materialized in my cell it took me by surprise. I had only just been incarcerated, and the length of my sentence – along with the possibility of breaking out from time to time – had yet to occur to me. I was sitting on the flimsy excuse for a bed and turning the blue notebook around in my hands. I’d kept it nearby ever since the Doctor had given it to me, but I was always a little too nervous to write in it. It had seemed like it was meant for something special, but I didn’t know what exactly that purpose was. So I kept it with me, but its pages were still blank. Nevertheless, I found it soothing to look at, and the colour and pattern on the cover reminded me of the Doctor. It had just hit me that, once again, I had no idea how to find him when I heard the comforting noise of the TARDIS fill my cell.

                As I entered the TARDIS I realized that the Doctor was wearing formal clothing, different from what he usually wore, and it occurred to me that this was probably some sort of a date. I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill him this time. We flirted and smiled at each other, and although I had known him all my life and only met him twice before, we fell into a natural rhythm and familiarity. I hoped that meant that we had a long future of interactions just like these – laughing and talking without trying to avoid killing each other.

                A person can dream, right?

                It was during that first visit that the Doctor brought up the blue notebook – a diary, he called it. It was him who reminded me that I could probably break out of Stormcage at a moment’s notice, and that I would likely be having many future adventures. And that he wouldn’t always know about them. By the end of that first date (I refused to count either of our previous encounters, since I wasn’t sure if it could really be a date when I’d tried to kill him) the blue diary was making me somehow both relieved and nervous.

                When he finally returned me to Stormcage, I sat on the bed for a moment and looked at the diary before filling in our adventures. The blank pages made me hopeful – they reminded me of all the adventures we had yet to have – but they were also confusing. The only reason I was writing on these pages at all was that I would not be meeting the Doctor in the proper order. I supposed that was to be expected, given the amount of time travel we each got involved with, but it did mean that there would reach a point – probably soon – when I would know more about our relationship than he did.

                It was strange to think about, since so far he had known everything about me. He knew who I was even when I didn’t, and he seemed to know a great deal about our adventures together. What was I going to do when I finally knew something he didn’t?

                I found out soon enough.

                It started out with the little things – the Doctor kept coming to me from time to time at night and taking me on adventures, and it wasn’t too surprising that sometimes I remembered an adventure he didn’t. None of them were too important, anyway. They were fun, and they helped pass the time, and they were time with the Doctor, but even if we missed a few details, all of the important things stayed the same. It wasn’t until Demons Run that I got a taste of what the future held.

                I had an idea of what Demons Run was and what it meant – it was a battlefield, and my birthplace, and it was tied inextricably with the Doctor – but I’d never had much of an intention of going there. I wanted to avoid places which could potentially involve meeting myself (an amusing thought on retrospect, considering how just how unsuccessful I was) and I knew Demons Run was an important moment. That’s probably why I ended up there, facing for the first time a Doctor who didn’t know my life story.

                By this point, I’d been in Stormcage for several years, and had grown fluent at breaking out and back in. The prison staff would probably have been alarmed, but for the most part they seemed either to not know or not care when I vanished off to the far corners of space and time. I didn’t always have access to the TARDIS, of course, but I found my own ways to get around. Going to Demons Run was an accidental byproduct of one of these trips: I had caught a lift with some time agents who were in the area, but they turned out to be somewhat less than trustworthy and I found myself dropped off at Demons Run while they zapped back to some mission in the 35th Century. I didn’t have time to protest or get another lift before I found myself in the aftermath of the battle which had determined my fate.

                I hadn’t originally intended to chastise the Doctor, but upon seeing him there, watching the Silence escape with me – the infant me – I realized that this was some sort of learning experience for him, like that time in Germany was for me. And if I could help make some sort of a point to him, I figured I owed him that much. So rather than staying in the shadows and watching, as I had intended (best not to get too messed up with the timelines) I stepped forward and made myself known.

                I wasn’t really sure where the eloquent wording came from. I had never thought myself to be very good at elegant and mysterious wording before, but apparently my time with the Doctor was rubbing off at least a little bit. Either way, I had apparently managed to make my point – arrogance is bad, don’t get too full of yourself, and so forth. It was time to mention the other main outcome of this battle, beyond the lives lost.

                When I mentioned the child, I wasn’t sure if the Doctor knew who I was or not. I had the suspicion that he didn’t; if he had, perhaps things would not have worked out the way they did. By now I had done enough digging into my own past (and how strange it was to have to _investigate_ something most people just remembered) to know what was going to happen. They took me, they turned me into a weapon, and they sent me to kill him. I still didn’t know why, but I did know that this was where it all began. I wasn’t angry, per se – had things gone differently, I would not be who I was – but I did want to impress upon him the significance of this moment.

                When I was done speaking to him (or, I suppose, lecturing him) the Doctor turned to me and confirmed my suspicions. “Who are you?”

                I had been expecting something like this, but I was still taken somewhat by surprise. This was the first time he hadn’t really known me. It took me a moment to regain my composure, and I tried to regain my footing with a playful comment and a slightly flirtatious expression. He persisted in asking, but by now I was a little more prepared. Glancing at the crib next to us, I caught a glimpse of the prayer leaf with the word “River” embroidered on one side of it. I knew something about the origin and language of these prayer leaves (apparently studying at the University taught me something, after all) and I knew that if I flipped it over, the other side would bear the word “Song”. I gazed pointedly at the leaf to make sure the Doctor followed my train of thought. I knew Amy and Rory wouldn’t get it, being unable to see the piece of fabric from where they stood, but I could explain it to them later. The Doctor would understand.

                I saw the exact moment he figured it out, and couldn’t suppress my smile as realization dawned in his eyes. It was strange to be the one telling him something new, but watching him smile and fidget as he learned the truth about me, I almost thought it was worth it. It was certainly a great deal of fun. He floundered about for a good few minutes before rushing off – typical – and telling _me_ to get everyone home. I’d hitched a ride and been stranded here, so I wasn’t sure how to manage that, but I decided to leave the Doctor in the dark about that particular detail. I’d figure something out.

                Now it was time to explain things to my parents.

                If the Doctor hadn’t known who I was, it was pretty clear that Amy and Rory didn’t know either, and I wasn’t really sure how they would react. “Amy, you have to stay calm”, I said, turning to face them. Amy, of course, pulled a gun on me. I wasn’t really surprised. Rory tried to prevent her from shooting me, which was considerate of him, but unnecessary. She was too curious to shoot me.

                Despite the gun still aimed in my general direction, I couldn’t help but toy with them for a few moments before showing them the prayer leaf. I don’t know why they looked straight to the Gallifreyan on the Doctor’s cot first, but I supposed that, being unable to read Gallifreyan, they figured it said something more useful than it really did (it was a handful of “relaxing” words like _sleep_ and _calm_ ). When I’d let them flounder for long enough, I pointed them in the right direction before just coming out and saying it. “It’s me. I’m Melody. I’m your daughter”.

                The looks on their faces weren’t quite as funny as the Doctor’s, but it was still more than enough to make the entire trip worthwhile. Now all I had to do was hitchhike everyone a ride home.

                As I sat in my cell that night, filling in the adventure in the blue diary, I realized that I would have to be more careful from now on. I’d told the Doctor who I was this time, but in the future I wouldn’t be able to. I’d have to hide things, pretend to not recognize people, and keep track of our timelines as carefully as I could. It was going to be a lot more work, but I knew that this was probably when the foundation between the Doctor and I started to build – from his perspective. The adventures we might have where he didn’t really know who I was were the ones which allowed him to convince me to become who I was. I smiled for a moment at the irony of the situation – of our lives – before closing the diary, putting it away, and going to bed.


	6. Dreading the Day

                I didn’t know what the letter was when I first saw it. I knew who it was from, of course – blue envelope, mysterious message, sent to me in Stormcage – it had to be the Doctor. But from when? And why? He’d never sent me letters before. If he had something to say he always just turned up in the TARDIS and swept me onboard. This was something new.

                I started making preparations to leave immediately. The prison staff didn’t really know what to make of me at this point – they kept trying to keep me in, and I kept escaping anyway. I had to give them credit for persistence, though. I smiled at the security officers and waved good-bye before activating the teleport bracelet I’d picked up somewhere and kept stashed away. Now I just had to find passage to 21st century America.

                By now, I’d been on plenty of adventures with the Doctor – often while the Ponds were asleep or on vacation or something – so I was confident enough in my relationship with him to shot that god-awful Stetson off his head before I said hello. I knew that one of these days I’d start running into versions of him who didn’t know we had a relationship, but I figured flirting with him was probably what got it all started anyway, and I sure wasn’t going to be the one to stop. I didn’t really want to know what it said about me that shooting at him counted as flirting.

                I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Doctor seemed to be pretty well caught up with me. That almost never happened nowadays; usually there was at least some adventure that I’d been on and he hadn’t. There were always adventures he’d been on that I hadn’t, of course, and I wanted to keep it that way. The fact that he was far enough in his timestream to be fully caught up with me meant that there was something strange going on, though, and I was both curious and a little bit nervous.

                I figured out what was going on when the Doctor started to talk about not running. The location, the timestream, the Doctor’s attitude – everything slipped into place. I didn’t remember too much of this day, but I remembered enough to know what I was going to have to watch. I also knew the Ponds couldn’t be allowed to know what was really going on, and the realization hurt.

                Fortunately, I was distracted by the Doctor’s next words. Apparently it wasn’t just his faked death which was bringing him here. For whatever reason, he was sending us to 1969, and I knew what that probably meant. My memories of that time were very fuzzy and jumbled, but between what I did remember and what I had dug up, I had a reasonable idea of what we would be facing. I was going to have to pretend not to recognize myself. Twice on one adventure. How messed up was that?

                I was the one who pointed out the astronaut in the water. I couldn’t help it – despite having a few memories of the suit and being in it, I was still struck by the strangeness of the image and the knowledge of what it meant. I watched as the Doctor headed off to face the astronaut – to face me – and although I knew it was an illusion, I still winced when I saw myself (in the suit) shoot the Doctor and start a regeneration cycle (an illusion of the tesselecta, I was sure, but a convincing one). And then I busied myself holding Amy and Rory back, wishing I could tell them that it was okay, that the Doctor wasn’t really dead, that everyone was alive. But I didn’t. Instead, I tried to comfort the Ponds, and watched as we burned the Doctor’s “body” and wondered what was going to happen next.               

                When we realized that the envelopes were numbered, and that the Doctor’s “Number 1” wasn’t among us, I should have figured out what was coming. I didn’t. Despite knowing that the Doctor would be okay, that he wasn’t really dead, I couldn’t help but feel sadness at his faked death – especially for Amy and Rory, who didn’t have my knowledge. When I saw him, younger and unaware of his upcoming “death”, saunter up and greet us in that restaurant with the “Number 1” envelope sitting on the table, smacking him seemed to be the appropriate response. Not only was it what I would probably have done had I not known that he’d only faked his death; it was also a decent expression of my anger at the whole situation. I was angry that he had to fake his death. I was angry that I was the one who’d had to kill him. I was angry that I had to hide what I knew. I don’t know if I was angry at him, necessarily, but of the people in the room he was the one most directly responsible for the current situation (excepting myself, since technically I _was_ the one who had shot him).

                I quickly established that, of those of us going on this adventure, I knew the most about what had happened and what was going to happen. This version of the Doctor didn’t seem to know too much about my story or his faked death, and I wasn’t going to reveal anything and risk screwing with the timeline (I’d done plenty enough of _that_ already, after learning just what happens when you try to stop a fixed point). Instead, I tried to direct us on a course of action, and this adventure, whatever it would hold. I was particularly curious about Canton, since although I knew what was significant about _my_ life in 1969, I had no idea who he was.

                Unfortunately, sticking to action and adventure didn’t seem to work out as well as I’d hoped it would. Somehow, I still ended up having to talk feelings with the Ponds without revealing too much of what I knew. Convincing them to keep this a secret was easy enough – it made sense, and my reasoning was more to do with basic temporal mechanics than foreknowledge – but trying to comfort the Ponds was much more difficult. When Amy accused me of not being bothered enough by what had happened, I found myself giving a response without thinking about it.

                “The Doctor’s death doesn’t frighten me, nor does my own. There’s a far worse day coming for me.”

                It was something I had considered before, but I had never before actually acknowledged the thought. I had relegated it to the back of my mind; an awareness I couldn’t be rid of but didn’t have to actually do anything about. I didn’t meant to admit it to the Ponds. Fortunately, I didn’t have to elaborate on my admittedly vague statement, since the Doctor was calling us up to listen to him show off his rather nonsensical explanations of quantum and temporal mechanics.

                Apparently, the Doctor didn’t want to go to 1969. And I supposed I could sympathize with his suspicion of mysteriously addressed envelopes from an unknown (to him) sender. He wasn’t really having a good day, between the mysterious summons and then us acting all strange around him. I got that he was in a bad mood (even if he wouldn’t admit it). I did.

                That didn’t make it hurt any less when he started asking me questions.

                Who was I? I couldn’t tell him – I’d already told him, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t allowed to do it again. Why was I in Stormcage? I clearly couldn’t reveal that, but _thank you for the reminder, Dear, I wasn’t already in enough emotional distress today._ But those were the types of questions I could handle – I would have to handle – despite their reminders of the inevitable future. They weren’t really what hurt.

                “Trust you? Seriously?” _That_ was what hurt. I didn’t blame him for asking, of course – he didn’t really know enough about me to trust me, yet – but it hurt just the same. I remembered the blue envelope with the number ‘2’ on it, and its reminder that the Doctor _did_ trust me, someday. I was someone he would trust with his life (whether or not that was actually a good idea). The only trouble was, that version of him seemed to be more and more in my past, as his knowledge of me was more and more in his future. And I knew what that meant, but I resolved to ignore it as best I could, and pretend that everything was fine until I couldn’t – that was how the Doctor seemed to deal with things, so it would have to work for me, too.

                At that, Amy convinced the Doctor when I couldn’t, and the Universe apparently decided that enough emotional trauma had been inflicted on me for one day, so we finally got back to the adventure.

                I was immensely grateful that I had some sort of telepathic bond with the TARDIS that, although not as deeply emotional as I guessed the Doctor’s probably was, proved much more practical. The Doctor may have loved that ship dearly, but I was fairly certain that I was perhaps a bit more capable at actually flying her – apparently, she had never bothered to give the Doctor the same telepathic crash-course in flying that she had given me. I fixed some of the Doctor’s attempts to get fancy with the controls (behind his back, of course-  I’d had enough of him being pissy with me for one day) and we set out to see just what was going on with Canton and Nixon.

                Being the Doctor, he naturally managed to get himself almost shot and arrested within five minutes of stepping out of the TARDIS. I noticed with some measure of relief that, despite his earlier statements to the contrary, he did seem to trust me enough with his life and his ship when push came to shove. It wasn’t as much as I’d have liked, but it was more than I knew I would eventually get.

                Apparently, we were there about phone calls. Phone calls from a child, to the president of the United States. I didn’t remember making those calls, but I knew that I must have. It was strange to hear my voice, from so many years ago, on the other end of the phone. I kept silent and pretended not to recognize it. Or at least, I kept as silent as I ever did, which meant that I dropped hints liberally while knowing the whole time that no one would completely piece them together.

                After watching myself shoot the Doctor on the beach, and listening to the phone call I’d made as a child, finding the suit just seemed like overkill. This entire adventure was turning into one giant trip down memory lane – “The Greatest Hits of Melody Pond”. All we were missing was a memento from that one time with Hitler.

                And then I had to try to convince my mother not to kill the younger version of myself which she didn’t realize was me _or_ her daughter. Well, that would be my life, wouldn’t it? Part of me did wonder, for a brief moment, what it would be like if she actually ended up killing me here, now, despite the paradox it would pose. The rest of me figured it was a moot point, between the Doctor not really being dead and me shooting him apparently being a fixed point. I tried to brush aside the thought as I told Amy that not all time could be rewritten. It wasn’t really what either of us wanted to hear, but it was the unfortunate truth. If time could be rewritten, I could think of several things just from my life so far I’d change – and most of them had to do with the lovely reminders of my childhood we were encountering on this little trip.

                Of course, then I wouldn’t have met the Doctor, so maybe it was for the best that things had ended up the way they did.

                It was almost a relief to go down into the dangerous-looking tunnel just to escape the strangeness of everything else which was going on. Rory followed me down (reluctantly – he was always the sensible one). I didn’t remember seeing anything when I took my initial glance around the tunnel, but that very lack of memory was frightening me. I had the feeling that there was something else going on, something sinister, but I couldn’t verify it. It felt familiar- like the times as a child that I’d just _lost_ pieces of my life, and I couldn’t tell if it was just the nostalgia of the place and the time, or if there was really something down there with us. It made me nervous, but it was also exciting because apparently I couldn’t tell the difference between danger and fun anymore. Not that I think I ever really could.

                The tunnels seemed even less inviting when I realized that they were far older than an unnoticed underground tunnel system should have been. The locked door and Rory’s insistence that opening said door was a bad idea just sweetened the pot. There was almost definitely something bad going on here, and I had the sinking feeling that I knew precisely what it was. Part of me was scared, but after everything the Silence had done to me, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want the chance to get back at them. I was almost looking forward to finding them (probably through the locked door I was currently working on)

                And then Rory asked me what I had meant earlier – _there’s a worse day coming for me_ – and the moment was ruined. But I had to tell him, had to tell _somebody_. So I did.

                Ever since I’d started to keep track of my meetings with the Doctor in the blue diary, I’d seen the pattern which was forming. It wasn’t perfect, and there were certainly exceptions, but it was definitely there. Our first meeting – he knew me perfectly and I knew him not at all. Then, later – he knew me, but not precisely who I was. Now – he wasn’t even sure if he trusted me completely. It didn’t take much thought to extrapolate and realize what was coming.

                Someday, when it was all said and done, the Doctor would meet me for the first time. He wouldn’t know who I was, wouldn’t remember even brief and insignificant adventures with me, and certainly wouldn’t know about the bond we currently shared. He would have absolutely no idea who I was. But I was certain I would know him, because that was how this worked. When I first met him, he knew me, so it was only fair that when he first met me, I knew him.

                It may have been fair, but I didn’t have to like it. I definitely didn’t like it. In fact, I was pretty much terrified of it. I was dreading it in that way we all dread the inevitable – it was something in the vague and nebulous future, and I was never sure how much longer I had because I’d never really been given any sort of a timeline, but I knew it was coming and I had no idea how I’d react. The Doctor was a sort of constant in my life – whether I was training to kill him, trying to kill him, or flirting with him, he was always _there_. Sure, I had made a life for myself apart from him: I’d befriended the Ponds before meeting him, and gotten my Doctorate, and if I hadn’t gotten arrested I was sure I’d still be working as an archaeologist, but ultimately I was used to having him as part of my existence, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle the knowledge that there was no more room for me in his timeline.

                I could imagine the day itself, but I couldn’t really envision the days to follow it.

                I didn’t say all that to Rory, of course – I couldn’t – but I said what I could, and I think he understood.


	7. Ending the Silence, Starting the Act

                In the months after the Doctor was captured, all I could do was seek out the Silence and try to gather as much information as I could about something nearly impossible to notice. It was frustrating, to say the least. It was also mildly terrifying to realize that the creatures I guessed were responsible for so much of my life had such a strong hold on the rest of the human race as well. There were _so many_ of them. I travelled through cities, avoiding the FBI where I could, until I found myself exploring a half-finished skyscraper in New York. I’d never been there before, and had actually thought about going one day – but this was never what I’d had in mind.

                I started as I heard the FBI calling my name. I couldn’t remember what I’d been looking at, so I had a fairly good idea of what it was. There was no good way for me to escape the FBI here: I was too high up in the building. Running wouldn’t work either, since I was still dressed up from the formal galleries I’d investigated earlier. In any case, there wasn’t anywhere to go.

                Still, reflex drove me to avoid them as best I could, and I found myself by the edge of the building with five guns pointed at me. There didn’t seem to be a reasonable way out, so I knew I’d have to do something ridiculous instead. I couldn’t be sure if Canton was on our side or not –he probably was, and just bluffing, but the Silence could make people _do_ things, and I couldn’t bring myself to trust him completely.

                I warned them about the Silence, knowing they wouldn’t believe me but figuring it was still worth a shot (the more the word spread, the more fringe conspiracy theorists would figure it out). Then, when I knew I’d stalled as long as I could and there was nothing else for it, I fell off the side of the half-finished building.

                I didn’t really intend to kill myself, of course. I just knew that if the Doctor was able, he’d come for me and I’d be fine. If he didn’t come for me, I didn’t figure it mattered whether I fell or was shot to death. I trusted the Doctor to come for me more than I’d ever trust the FBI or Canton.

                I wasn’t disappointed.

                I smiled to myself as I towelled my hair dry from my little stint in the swimming pool. The Doctor was being his usual self, whirring all over the place and trying to figure out the situation. Apparently, my suspicions were right, and the Silence had been here long enough that they effectively ran the planet. As if just trying to control my life and morals wasn’t enough.

                At least this time we were prepared – I wasn’t entirely certain how much help the nanorecorders would be, but it was certainly better than nothing. At least leaving ourselves messages would let us be aware that we were potentially being controlled. Still, I had to supress a shiver when the Doctor used Canton to demonstrate the Silence’s powers of manipulation.

                When they started talking about the ‘little girl in the spacesuit’, I knew I’d have to pull out the acting skills. I tried to stay relatively out of the conversation and remained focused on the rest of the plan, only getting involved when we finally found the suit. It was strange, examining the device after all these half-forgotten years. I remembered it, viscerally, but most of what I told the Doctor was from current deductions rather than past memories. I remembered the feelings, and the struggling, but the technology itself was essentially alien to me.

                When I’d actually made that phone call as a child, I hadn’t really understood what I was doing. I’d pieced it together easily enough from the start of this little adventure, and I knew the Doctor and the Ponds would too, one day, but at the time I’d had no idea who I was talking to or what I was doing. I had, I supposed, literally been a different person, considering the regeneration I knew I’d undergone shortly after leaving the suit. Sometimes I wondered what it was that made a person themselves – memories? Genetics? Personality? Between regeneration and the Silence mine had changed so much over the years that I wasn’t really certain anymore if that little girl had really been me. For that matter, I wasn’t entirely certain if the woman who’d almost killed the Doctor in Germany had really been me, for all that I remembered her. It was something I knew I would never do now – had proven that day on the beach that I couldn’t do – and it was strange to think that it was once something I’d just assumed would come to pass.

                My musings were interrupted by those of the Doctor, as he grew distracted with the envelope he’d sent to himself. Apparently, he was trying to figure out who had sent it. I hated not being able to tell him. I hated having to keep all these secrets. So much had been kept from me during my life, and I didn’t see why I had to keep so much secret from him now. Nevertheless, I was pretty sure that telling him the truth would be a bad idea. Sometimes I hated time travel.

                When he asked me about it, I deflected the question. Instead of addressing the letter or the girl, I decided to talk about us. Technically, I was still on topic, I supposed, although the Doctor couldn’t know that. By now, I’d worked out that (with the occasional exception) our lives ran roughly in reverse of each other, and I told him as much. I hoped the unspoken subtext was clear: _Yes, I know what’s happening. No, I can’t tell you._

                Of course, he couldn’t leave it be. In the end, I told him that the Silence were keeping the child safe and giving her some measure of independence. I didn’t know if I’d really call what I’d had independence, but it had at least been the illusion of it, so I figured it was close enough. In the end, maybe the illusion was all we ever really got. After all, every time I thought I was free someone else showed up and took over my life somehow. I think after a while I’d just learned to make do with the illusion and pretend it was real.

                For a while, I analyzed the suit’s technology and pretended to be confused by the situation. Then my faked confusion became real as the suit started to _repair_ itself on its own. I hadn’t been aware that it could do that. What was happening?

                I suddenly had a horrible flash of memory from my early childhood. I’d always been afraid of the suit, but with so much confused in my memory already I’d forgotten about the few brief snippets of this life I’d been out of the thing. Now, I remembered with a sinking feeling, as I saw the spacesuit coming towards me menacingly, and my own childlike terror. I fought, not for the first time that day, against the revulsion I felt for the space suit. Fortunately, these things were mostly unnecessary in the future.

                It was a relief when we could finally do something to help Amy. I’d seen her in the future, so I knew she would _probably_ be okay, but sometimes things changed, and it was good to actually see her and feel like I could help. I followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS, keeping my weapon ready to fire.

                When the Doctor made a semi-flirtatious crack about me really not minding shooting people, I almost laughed. He _would_ think that, and in a way I suppose he was right. I didn’t really _like_ shooting people, of course, but I guess I’d become desensitized to it after my time with the Silence. After being forced to shoot the Doctor. I was pretty certain I’d been made to shoot people before without even knowing or remembering it, judging by the way I’d virtually always been able to handle a gun.

                I didn’t say any of that, though. Instead, I smiled back at the Doctor and accepted what I knew he’d meant as a complement. “Thank you, Sweetie.” If I could shoot people now to make up for shooting one particular person on that beach (even if it didn’t really stick) I would.

                Besides, these were the Silence, and I wanted to take down as many of them as I could. I indulged for a few moments in friendly banter with the Doctor over this exact point – if I had it my way, I’d take down all of them, but I figured I’d settle for eight – before Amy interrupted us and we went back to saving my mother.

                Since the Doctor was involved, “Saving my mother” actually meant watching as he chattered at the Silence to buy time. I let him have his moment, though, since we’d discussed this plan briefly beforehand and it really was rather brilliant. The Doctor would never admit it, but he’d done some pretty stupid things in his time. This was not one of them.

                I watched as the Doctor got Canton patch the new footage through, essentially giving the order for humanity to kill the Silence. I couldn’t say I’d really miss seeing-but-not-remembering them all that much. Still, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t sort of satisfying when I finally got to shoot a few of them myself as we made our getaway. It was nice to feel like I was getting some sort of payback for everything they’d done to me over the course of my life.

                Things were starting to look up. I got to throw the Doctor a few friendly insults – screwdriver? Really? What _did_ he think he was going to do to the Silence with that? And the man really did need to let me teach him to fly the TARDIS one of these days. I mean, I know he could technically fly it and get where he had to go, but it was still no match for a telepathic lesson from the ship herself. And I had the sneaking suspicion that he was rather more skilled at making do than actually flying.

                With the world saved, though, it was soon time to return to my cell. The Doctor actually offered to take me with him, but I knew that wouldn’t work out. Escaping from Stormcage permanently was probably pushing it too far- they put up with me getting out on a regular basis, but that was mostly because I always came back. I was okay with staying in prison, as long as I got to see the Doctor semi-regularly.

                The trouble came when the Doctor just started to leave, and my previously light mood started to sink. The Doctor honestly looked like he didn’t understand. “Have I forgotten something?”

                I tried to play it off, tried to assume the best – that he was just pretending to mess with me. It was the sort of thing I supposed I could see him doing. “Oh, shut up.” I pulled him in for a kiss, noticing with some small measure of fear that his response was a little more surprised than he had any reason to act.

                “What’s wrong? You’re acting like we’ve never done that before.”

                I held my breath as I waited for the inevitable response. “We haven’t.”

                So this was it, then. I watched as he floundered his way through the suddenly awkward situation and left, then let the moment really hit me. If this was the first time he remembered kissing me, it was very probably the last time I would ever get to kiss him. There was always the off chance that we’d meet in the right order, and he’d remember _us_ , but the ‘sweet spot’ I’d been enjoying for the past while was over. From here on out, I’d mostly be a strange (and flirtatious, because the actual relationship may not have started for him yet, but flirting was something I could still do) woman who was likely a complete mystery to him.

                I didn’t want to be a mystery, but I’d take what I could get.


	8. The Pandorica Opens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating for so long; I was working on another fic (which I have finished, but not posted yet) and got distracted. I should be able to focus more on this piece for a while.
> 
> As always, feedback is appreciated.

                Things went back to what passed as normal for me after that, for a while. I continued to perfect my ability to leave Stormcage whenever I wanted to go on my own little trips, but beyond a few adventures here and there, things were fairly smooth. I’d settled into a routine at Stormcage, and although I couldn’t say I actually enjoyed being there, it really wasn’t putting much of a stopper on my life, either.

                And then I got a phone call.

                Like so much else in my life, it was about the Doctor. And, like everything else, it ended up being about the whole world, too. Sometimes I wondered if it could ever be any other way – the fate of that man seemed to be tied into the whole world, and I could never be sure if it was a literal truth or a personal one.

                When I heard the security guard (New, friendly enough, well-intentioned – he had no idea what he was in for) mention the Doctor, I answered as soon as I possibly could. It wasn’t like the Doctor to actually call in advance, rather than just _showing up_ , but if there was one thing I had learned about him, it was that he was unpredictable.

                When I answered the call, however, I was greeted not by the Doctor’s casual friendliness but by Winston Churchill’s grave importance. As I listened to the man speak, I started to plan my escape. Messages from Van Gogh and exploding TARDISes? This was one story I was _not_ going to miss.

                Escaping was almost fun. I felt a bit sorry for the security guard I had drugged with my lipstick, but it didn’t supress the small flicker of amusement as I imagined them realizing what had happened. That lipstick was one of the most useful purchases I had made, as far as I was concerned. A bit flamboyant at times, but the more outrageous I made my obvious escapes, the easier it was to get out with the subtle ones.

                Getting the painting didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped. Despite my many other less-than-legal skills, successfully stealing from a relatively high-security museum was, apparently, not in the cards. Fortunately, it didn’t have to be. I took in the woman standing across from me and tried to look like I was doing something important and justified. Given that I was, it wasn’t too difficult.

                My next stop (this was a busy evening) was to see Dorian. I knew him well, and although I couldn’t say that I actually liked the man, I knew I could count on him to get certain objects when I needed them; it was him who had helped me to procure the hallucinogenic lipstick I had used to escape on more than one occasion. Tonight, I needed him to sell me transport.

                “Sell” may not have been the best term for it. I knew before even seeing the vortex manipulator that it had probably come from unsavoury sources, and I felt absolutely no guilt when I dropped a few microexplosives in the trader’s wine. It’s not like I intended them to actually detonate, after all.

                With transport in all four dimensions secured, all I had to do was leave a message for the Doctor in a suitably ridiculous location and convince a troop of Romans that I was an Egyptian queen. It wasn’t even that difficult. Honestly, I was definitely going to have to find more of that lipstick.

                When I did finally see the Doctor, I couldn’t help the little jolt of relief that flooded me at his recognition. Whatever else happened today, at least he knew who I was – however much of me there might be left to discover. I was fairly certain that the Doctor would survive whatever this was – I had seen him in the future, after all – but when I showed him and Amy the painting, I couldn’t help but worry. Having had my share of adventures in time travel, I knew that things weren’t always set in stone (although I, of all people, knew that sometimes they were). For all I knew, this point could change at any moment, or could be set back on its original course, and somehow things could go very, very wrong. Seeing the TARDIS explode – even if just in a painting – was jarring enough to leave me firmly convinced that whatever this was, it couldn’t be allowed to happen.

                The title of the painting – “The Pandorica Opens” – was no more reassuring than its subject matter. I knew from my time studying archaeology what the Pandorica was, or was said to be. Like most others, I had assumed it to be mythical or allegorical, but apparently I was wrong. A box meant to hold something incredibly powerful, and dangerous, and dark, and feared beyond belief, and the Doctor had to get himself in the centre of it all. Typical. Of course, I knew I wanted to be right there with him.

                When we got to Stonehenge (because apparently that was the best place to bury something like the Pandorica, and the archaeologist in me was dying to speculate on the history, but now was _not_ the time), Amy started to talk to me. It was strange, like talking to the Doctor was always a little strange. I didn’t really know when I was with them yet, although judging from their attitudes they knew me, but not my story. When Amy asked me about the Byzantium, I tried to clarify things before I could get too much foreknowledge – there was enough time-related insanity in my life already, and I didn’t need knowledge of the future to make it any messier than it already was.

                I couldn’t suppress the thrill of excitement that shot through me when we discovered the tunnels under Stonehenge. They had clearly been there for a very long time, and I wondered absently if I would ever get the chance to drop by while they were being built and see this story from the beginning. After the whole thing was said and done, I decided that I wanted nothing _whatsoever_ to do with the Pandorica, and was content to leave its construction to the depths of historical myth in which it belonged. Still, I can remember my first sight of it: something straight out of legend and fairy tale, sitting in front of me. Whatever danger it held, it was nevertheless amazing.

                When we discovered that the Pandorica was starting to open of its own accord, I was intrigued and a little nervous, but not really surprised. We had been given advanced warning, after all. I couldn’t decide which was more powerful: my fear of whatever was inside, or my desire to _know_ what was in there. Since neither was relevant, however, I pushed them both aside in favour of a more useful concern.

                Interrupting the Doctor’s not-exactly-internal monologue on the mystery, I brought up what was probably our more pressing concern.

                “Doctor, you said _everyone_ could hear it.” I knew better than most just how many enemies – and how many devoted enemies – the Doctor had. With something this powerful happening, how many of them would be trying to harness themselves a weapon?

                As it turned out, the answer was _all of them_. As I interpreted the readings from the ships orbiting above us, I realized that pretty much everything up there had a grudge against the Doctor. I didn’t know what that said about the Pandorica, but it couldn’t bode well for the immediate future.

                The smart thing to do would have been to take the TARDIS and go somewhere far away from all of the ships waiting to attack us. We should have just tried to forget about the Pandorica and left as soon as we saw those readings. Of course, the Doctor wouldn’t have any of it. For a man who spent his whole life running, he was surprisingly stubborn.

                It was as a result of that stubbornness – that desire to stand and hold his ground on the one occasion when he should probably run – that I found myself trying to convince a Roman military leader that he should help the woman who had been posing as a dead Egyptian Queen to his troops.

                It was, admittedly, rather amusing. I could empathize with the way those people felt, trying to understand something that was beyond what they could possibly be expected to know, but it was nevertheless entertaining to vaporize a cabinet and watch the expression of awe and incomprehension wash over the man’s previously smug face. It was nice, after so many years of only half-remembering my life, to be the one who knew what was actually going on (even when I still had no clue what was happening).

                My illusory sense of understanding fled fairly quickly when I saw the face of the soldier who had volunteered to help us. Of all the strange things happening, I was fairly certain that Rory showing up in a Roman battle camp was one of the strangest. I recognized the Centurion outfit from the battle at Demons Run, but I understood the purpose of it no better now than I had then. Rory knew even less than I did – not only did he have no clue why he was suddenly a Roman soldier, but he also had no knowledge of me at all. Being Rory, he was friendly enough to me, but it was a saddening reminder of what my future held, and it was the first time I’d met someone I knew and had been greeted with blank unrecognition.

                I didn’t really have time to dwell on it, however. Rory and I split up soon after I secured his help, and I was off to find the TARDIS. Rushed as I was, given the situation, it was always a relief to see the ship again. The Doctor’s memories of me faded and changed every time we met, but she always remembered me, always caught me when I was falling and smoothed her controls to let me fly. Even in the days in my “childhood” making paper-mache sculptures of that blue box with Amy and Rory, she had been a comfort.

                It was unusual, then, that she started to buck and fight me as we went to fetch supplies. She’d only ever behaved like that when there was some place she didn’t want to go, there was no reason for her to fight this trip – she’d been there before, plenty of times, and this was new. Lamenting the fact that my connection to the ship was purely nonverbal, I pressed on. What else was there to do?

                Pressing on didn’t appear to be working. The ship bucked again, shifting violently in a part of the vortex that was, theoretically, smooth sailing. I grabbed onto the console once again and wondered what was up with the ship. After things smoothed out (for the time being) I asked the ship “Okay? You okay now?”

                I didn’t expect an answer. I also didn’t expect to be dropped at Amy’s old house. If the old ship had been fighting enough to stop somewhere completely unrelated to my original destination, she had to have a good reason for it.

                I remembered this place, and after everything that had changed since I had last been here, it was strange that the house itself was still so much the same. The same, that is, except for the unusual patterns burnt into the ground of the garden. I didn’t recognize them, but they were clearly not from Earth, and if the bashed-in door was anything to go by, they weren’t friendly.

                There was some sort of signal coming from inside the house, and as I followed it I found myself being led to Amy’s bedroom. The room itself was empty, thankfully, but still filled with the Doctor’s influence on Amy’s childhood. Drawings of the TARDIS, paper dolls and figurines – they all served as a clear reminder of just how much he had changed her life, from the very start.

                “Oh, Doctor,” I muttered to myself, “Why do I let you out?”

                I remembered what I had told the Doctor that day at Demons Run. If this was what the Doctor could do to the life of one child he had known for perhaps an hour, without even meaning to, what else could he accidentally set into motion? I trusted him to make the right decision, when it came down to it, but I remembered the days when my life mission was to kill him, and I still desperately wanted to know _why_.

                My thoughts were pulled back to the present when I caught sight of a familiar face where it shouldn’t have been. I thought back to something the Doctor had said earlier: _Never ignore coincidence – unless you’re busy, in which case, always ignore coincidence.”_ I _was_ busy, but this seemed like a bit much to ignore. I found it hard to believe that the Roman soldiers and Pandora’s Box references we were currently dealing with were scattered over Amy’s desk accidentally. The question was, which came first?

                As I flipped through the book, the pieces suddenly slotted into place and I was running for the TARDIS to call the Doctor. I kept my voice low and urgent as I explained the situation. “They’re not real, they can’t be. They’re all right here in the storybook – those actual Romans. The ones I sent you, the ones you’re with right now.” I let a flicker of alarm seep into my voice. I didn’t know what could do this, but it had tricked us all with those Roman soldiers, so it was almost definitely dangerous. I could only hope we had caught onto them in time. “They’re all in a book in Amy’s house. A children’s picture book.”

                As the Doctor and I analyzed the situation, it became apparent that the Romans really believed themselves to be exactly as they appeared. That in and of itself was disturbing enough – I loathed the concept of manipulating people into doing things, for obvious reasons – but I felt a little stab in my chest when I realized that one of those Romans was Rory Williams. I still didn’t really know what he was doing there, but now I didn’t even know if it was really him.

                If Rory hadn’t recognized me, it seemed that I wasn’t supposed to recognize him, either. Still, I couldn’t just let the subject drop. If Rory wasn’t really himself, than Amy was in danger. He’d _seemed_ like himself, though – had all of his own memories, certainly acted like he usually did. I hoped that whatever was making him seem like Rory was enough to give him the strength to break his commands. From what I knew of my parents, the love between them would certainly have been enough to do it.

                I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though, since the TARDIS once again started to throw a tantrum on me. I’d been trying to get back to the Doctor, since the supply run seemed to be a bust, but apparently she wasn’t even willing to make the return trip. This had to be the work of an outside influence.

                The Doctor was maddeningly unhelpful. “You’re flying her wrong”, he said, the same way he always did, but I knew I wasn’t the problem. The ship _liked_ me, knew me, and I’d flown her before without incident. Then the time coordinates started to freak out the Doctor, and I had no idea why – nor could I do anything about it.

                “Silence will fall.” The words echoed over the TARDIS speakers, searing themselves into my brain. _Of course._ Whoever had been doing this was powerful and manipulative, and wanted the Doctor dead. What better way to do that than to mess with the one thing inextricably linked to him? As far as they knew, nobody else alive could fly this ship. I didn’t know if they were responsible for the whole of this mess, or just messing with the TARDIS, but it was still enough to make my blood run cold. I wanted to go to the Doctor, warn him about the Silence, but I knew I couldn’t. At this point, the Silence would probably mean nothing to him, and the fact that _someone_ was manipulating the ship was far more important than _who_ was doing it.

                After what felt like a wrestling match with the ship, I finally felt us land somewhere. If I could just leave, as the Doctor helpfully reminded me, the engines would shut down and things – at least on this end – would be safe.

                Which, of course, is why the doors were locked.

                The ship was going to explode any moment now. Whatever the Silence had done to her was fatal, and who knew how much she could take out with her? I had to get out, had to shut down the ship until it was safe. Grabbing a cable, I ran to the doors and tried to jumpstart them into opening.

                After what felt lake an eon, I finally managed to convince the doors to open. Flinging them wide, prepared to run out and deal with whatever was on the other side, I found myself faced with a wall. A very stubborn, immovable stone wall. No way was I getting through that.

                This was it. There was no escape, and no way would I be able to save either myself or the ship. This was the earliest I’d seen the Doctor, but he had still known me. I’d taken that to mean that this wasn’t the last time I would ever see him, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe time could be rewritten, after all – just never when you want it to be. I turned back to the console and, not knowing if I was talking to the Doctor or the TARDIS, said what I figured would be my last words.

                “I’m sorry, my love.”

                Then the world exploded.


End file.
